Facebook users will soon be able to buy highly sought-after concert tickets via Ticketmaster. According to BuzzFeed News, this new feature will launch at the end of April.
Facebook giving more reasons to stay on the platform
The news comes ahead of Facebook’s F8 developer conference where chatbots are expected to be part of the announcements. Many companies have been shifting their commerce operations to social media platforms for years. For some, such operations have been successful, but for some, they haven’t. However, for things like concerts, selling tickets on the social media giant will possibly be in the company’s advantage.
By putting in the ability to buy tickets directly within Facebook, Ticketmaster hopes to provide a more seamless purchase experience and sell more tickets, said Dan Armstrong, Ticketmaster’s VP of distributed commerce, in an interview with BuzzFeed.
As for how this process is actually going to work, nothing has been revealed yet. Users can buy tickets on the social media platform, and technically, the tickets will be processed there, but the user will still have to claim a purchase on Ticketmaster.com. Also the social media platform will charge a fee from Ticketmaster for each ticket it sells.
Facebook will likely not offer any alternative to using Ticketmaster’s website or mobile apps for major ticketing events like Beyoncé’s or Taylor Swift’s concerts. It seems that this will be a better option for smaller shows that do not sell many tickets offline and already have event pages on the social network.
Ticketing going high-tech
Ticketing is going high-tech, and this cannot be ignored. Just last month, eBay subsidiary StubHub announced that users will be able to get a preview of where their seats are in an arena before purchasing tickets with the use of VR. Ticketmaster has underlined its focus on alternative platforms, including mobile and watch apps, in past conversations.
It’s not just Facebook that has become a ticket affiliate; Pandora is also pushing users to get notifications for concert tickets for the bands they listen to. Since November, Spotify’s mobile app has offered a similar service through Songkick.
Due to platforms like SeatGeek and StubHub, giants like Ticketmaster have worked to make it simpler for users to actually sell or transfer tickets to others legally. Also ticketing companies are making inroads for redeeming tickets; Apple Wallet support and QR-coded tickets are a good example of this.
